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MTA Completes first week of FASTRACK

Weeklong effort pays off with unprecedented productivity gains

For four consecutive weeknights hundreds of MTA workers worked through the late night and early morning hours cleaning inspecting, repairing and replacing subway infrastructure on a nearly seven-mile long segment of the normally busy Lexington Avenue Line.

Jobs that would usually take weeks or months to complete were accomplished in days because, for the first time, maintenance workers were allowed to perform theirs tasks without the interruption of passenger trains rolling through a massive work area that stretched from Grand Central-42nd Street to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

MTA New York City Transit's new FASTRACK initiative is an entirely new way to perform subway maintenance in our system; completely suspending train service over a segment of a subway line, giving workers uninterrupted access to tracks, signals, cables, lighting, third rail components and platform edges. During the four night period more than 300 vital tasks were completed---from rail replacement to roadbed cleaning to the scraping and painting of ceilings over tracks and platforms. Much of this work had not been performed in several years and some of it could only be done in the absence of trains over an extended period of time.

"It was clear from the first night that in terms of productivity and efficiency FASTRACK is a major improvement in the way we perform subway maintenance. We were able to get far more work accomplished in a much shorter period of time," said NYC Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast. "There is a real feeling of pride among our workers who are now able to return the railroad to our customers in visibly better condition than it was just a few hours earlier."

Three work trains supported nearly 70 work crews from several divisions within the Department of Subways. Work was performed in the stations along the line segment as well as the tunnels and even into the Joralemon Tube which connects Brooklyn to Manhattan.

In the planning for upwards of three months, the result was a seamless effort that saw maintenance workers specializing in different disciplines working to complete jobs and make improvements that customers would notice by the time service was resumed on the 4, 5 and 6 Lines for the next morning's rush period. Workers cleaned and replaced lighting fixtures, scraped dry mud from the roadbed while also removing trash and debris and cleaning the roadbed, inspected and performed preventative maintenance on components crucial to providing safe and reliable service. They also scraped peeling paint from station ceilings and painted station areas.

Work also included inspections of equipment along the right of way; scraping and bagging of debris in station tracks; replacement of tie and rail fastener plates; scraping and painting rubbing board and columns within station limits; cleaning of stations (mobile wash); cleaning of drains; the routine maintenance of and performance testing of signals. And importantly, work was wrapped up and service restored to customers by 5 a.m.

"A tremendous amount of coordination and effort is going into Fastrack and we are already seeing the benefits," said Carmen Bianco, Senior Vice President of the Department of Subways.

Platform Conductors and Traffic Checkers were on hand at key transit hubs including Grand Central – 42nd St, Atlantic Ave-Pacific St and 14th St – Union Square handing out printed information and directing riders to alternate lines. In addition to these efforts, we also used our website www.mta.info to provide daily updates to customers on the previous night's work. When the FASTRACK is complete, and NYC Transit performs its assessment, we will report our finding to the MTA Board for their review.

Our next FASTRACK overnight closure will be on the Broadway/Seventh Avenue 1, 2. 3 line between 34th Street and Atlantic Avenue from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for four consecutive nights beginning Monday, February 13 and ending at 5 a.m. Friday, February 17.